phone

Last night my phone fell into the bathtub.
It slid off the towel on the shelf at the side of the tub, made a splash and disappeared. Complete submersion, for at least 4 seconds.

After realizing what that unexpected splash must have been, I used the headphones like a fishing line to pull it out. Amazingly, the phone was still on, but the touch screen no longer worked.

A previous drop saved it

My phone is working again, 12 hours later. What saved it, at least in part, was the fact that I had dropped it before – on asphalt. That drop had my screen shatter into a million pieces, and forced me to completely disassemble it, replace the touchscreen and digitizer with a replacement ($40 on the internet) and reassemble it.

Because of that previous surgery, it was easy to pry the back of the phone off again. Sure enough, there was water inside the phone. I shook it out until it stopped feeling wet and then put the still open phone and a paper towel in the oven for a while. No, I didn’t bake it – I just pre-heated the oven for a few minutes, then turned it off and let the phone lie in the remaining heat for the night.

Withdrawal Symptoms

I spend the night going through the usual phone withdrawal symptoms.
There was no casual gaming, no bedtime audio book and I couldn’t google those random questions that pop into your head at night. I wanted to message my sister and tell her about my mishap, but couldn’t (not without leaving the bed, anyway). I desperately wanted to take a picture of my disassembled phone in the oven, but of course, my phone is my only camera, so no luck. And I very nearly overslept, because my phone is also my alarm clock.

But this morning my phone turned on without complaint and the touchscreen is working again, too.